Chapter Twelve

NOTHING FROM INSIDE, NO sound at all. But I have this odd feeling she's in there. I know it down in my bones. I ring the bell again. And again, nothing.

Maybe this was a mistake. If it were meant to happen, she'd answer the door.

I have this sudden, horrible flash of her lying dead in the living room, a glass clutched in her cold hand, a little vodka pooled in the bottom of it. Too fucking awful. Even worse that I feel a wave of sadness.

I shake my head, turn to go, and the door swings open behind me.

“Who's there?”

God, her voice, the same under the unfamiliar creak of a woman who is old now. But she couldn't be more than fifty, fifty-two maybe. Far from old. She sounds like she is a hundred.

I turn, but the house is dark and dingy inside, and all I can see is the dim outline of a person. Not even recognizable as female. Not recognizable to me at all. She steps closer, opens the torn screen door, and I see her.

She's a mess. Hair cut short yet still askew, wearing torn sweatpants and an old pink sweater. Her face is lined, radiating a sadness I can't even begin to fathom. And unexpectedly, my heart breaks a little.

“Mom?”

“What?”

I realize she has no idea who I am.

“It's me. Valentine.”

“Valentine?” Shock in her voice, and booze, despite the early hour. Did I really expect anything else? Some of the anger comes back, but it's diffused now.

“It's me, Mom. Can I come in?”

She takes a moment to answer. Maybe she'll say no. I suppose I wouldn't blame her if she did. Finally, she says gruffly, “I guess so,” and holds the door, letting me pass into the house.

Stench of sour alcohol and old cigarettes. It's overpowering, nauseating. Or maybe that's just the fear kicking in again; I can't tell at this point.

The living room is lit only by a small crack in the faded and crooked curtains and the flickering, silvery-blue wash from the TV.

She goes to sit on the sagging sofa. It's the same terrible floral print that was here the last time I was in this house. She doesn't invite me to sit down, and there are no other chairs in the living room. I look around, go to the adjoining kitchen, and pull a wooden chair into the room, across from her, but not too close.

She picks up a crushed pack of cigarettes, lights one with an unsteady hand, rasps out, “So, what do you want?”

“I just… I want to talk to you.”

“So talk.”

I study her for a moment. Beneath the sagging skin, the dark circles under her eyes that are exactly the same shade of green as my own, the puffiness from too much drinking, I can see the old beauty in her face. My one gift from her. I can be grateful for that, at least. I would be nowhere without it. A sad truth.

“How have you been, Mom?”

“How have I been?” She laughs, a sharp, snorting sound. “If you really cared you wouldn't have disappeared for … how many years?”

“I know,” I say quietly. “I should have come to see you. I shouldn't have turned my back. I just… I didn't know what else to do. I was too angry. Too resentful. And then it just became … habit.”

She takes a deep drag on her cigarette, the ash on the end growing long, perilous, but she ignores it. “I didn't miss you that much anyway.”

Such an ugly thing to say. And I can see from the tears brimming in her eyes that it's not true.

My chest is absolutely aching.

“I don't blame you for that, Mom. I really don't. But do you understand why I had to go?”

She throws back a good finger of vodka, doesn't say anything for a moment, her eyes on the bottom of the glass.

“I gave you what I had, girl.”

I know she doesn't mean money. I understand her exactly. And there is nothing more to say about it, is there? I'm not here to torture her about how she raised me.

“How's Dad?”

“He's dead, that's how he is. Bastard finally left me for good, and it killed him. Heart attack. And I'm better off.”

“I'm sorry.”

Am I going to hell because I'm not? I can't find it within myself to feel bad for him. To feel anything. But I can see she's paid for it, that loss. And suddenly I am sorry, for her. For the hell her life has been, even if she chose much of it herself.

“Mom, I really am sorry.”

A tear spills over her cheek and she wipes it on her sleeve. “I need a drink.”

She gets up, goes into the kitchen, and pours herself a double shot of vodka, not even bothering with ice.

It is eleven o'clock in the morning.

She comes back, grunts as she sits down again. “So, what have you done with your life, Valentine? You and your fancy clothes? That fancy car you drove up in? I can see you're doing pretty well, huh?”

I shake my head. “No. I haven't done well at all. Oh, I have nice clothes, a nice car. I've made some money. But I've had nothing else.”

“What else do you want?”

An excellent question. One I need to find a way to answer for myself. That's part of why I'm here.

I can't remember now exactly why else I came. Did I think she would welcome me with open arms? Did I think she would have cleaned up her life, stopped the drinking, the resentment that has eaten her up inside for as long as I can remember? Did I think my parents would suddenly be living here together, happily surrounded by a white picket fence?

I have to admit, some small part of me was hoping for exactly that. As though that would redeem me, somehow. Or them, at least.

You're a fool.

She leans forward, the drink cupped between her hands, the cigarette hanging at an angle from between her fingers. “I could really use some cash, Valentine.” She's not looking at me.

“What? Oh, of course. Is … is a check okay?” I fumble for my purse, pull out my designer leather checkbook, a pen. Why do I feel so fucking guilty? So incredibly sad and as though this is all my fault somehow?

I write out a check for five thousand dollars. It won't help to assuage the guilt entirely, but it's something. I hand it to her and she looks at it, her watery eyes going wide.

“Jesus Christ, Valentine.” She stops, looks up at me, pauses to drag off her cigarette. She blows the smoke out in a harsh blue stream. “You could come by more often.”

I nod my head. But I have no intention of coming back here.

The anger has been slowly draining from my body since I arrived. How can I be angry at this woman? She has nothing, has done nothing with her life. And it's clear her life is pretty much over.

I still have a chance, don't I?

As Joshua said, it's all about re-creating yourself. About choosing. I need to choose what I want to be, who I want to be.

The idea is pretty overwhelming: re-creating my life at almost thirty.

I can't stand to be here any longer. I'm not going to get any closure from her. All I can do is accept who she is, and move on. Maybe that's all I need from this visit.

“I have to go, Mom. I'll send you more money, okay?”

She shrugs, as though it doesn't matter. “Wouldn't hurt.”

I walk to the door. She sits on the couch, waves to me with the check in her hand. She's already absorbed in her glass of vodka again as I let myself out.

Outside, I take in deep gulps of air. I don't know if what I did was right: coming to see her after all these years, then staying only fifteen minutes. Giving her the money, which she will no doubt spend on booze. But what else can I do? Each of us has to choose our path, and she's chosen hers. I can't make her change. I have no desire to do that.

It's time for me to choose for myself now. And I know what I want. But I'm still having a hard time with the believing part. I don't know if that's ever going to change. I have no idea what I'm capable of.

Taking one last look around the drab neighborhood, I get back into the car, lock the doors, start the engine. When I glance back at my mother's house, she is standing at the window, the curtain held aside in one hand, her stubby cigarette in the other. I wave to her. She steps back, drops the curtain.

I am absolutely drained. By the time I drive back over the hill and into Marina del Rey, I am completely unable to think, to figure anything out.

Later. Think it all through later.

I let myself into Joshua's house with the key he gave me. It's cool inside, clean. Inhaling deeply, I breathe in the scent of safety. I head into the bedroom, take my clothes off, climb into bed, and fall asleep.

I WAKE UP TO the sound of Joshua's keys jangling. The sun is going down outside; I've slept all day. I seem to be good at this sort of escapism. At all kinds of escapism. “Baby, are you here?” he calls out.

“I'm in here.” My voice is thick, mumbling, as I sit up, leaning against the headboard.

He walks into the room with that muscled grace I find so beautiful in him, comes to sit on the bed, ruffles my hair.

“Have I been keeping you up at night? But you're the one who's insatiable. Or as insatiable as I am, anyway.”

He's smiling at me, that lovely mouth of his, and I tremble with a sweeping surge of that absolute happiness I feel with him.

“Kiss me,” I demand, and he does. A long, sweet kiss that turns into a trail of kisses down my neck. I hold his head in my hands, my fingers going into his short, thick hair.

“Tell me what you've been doing all day,” he says, bringing his face back to mine, searching my eyes. “You didn't spend the day at the beach.”

“I went to see my therapist, Lydia. Have I told you I have a therapist?”

“No. We haven't had a chance to tell each other everything yet. But we have plenty of time. And I'm glad to know you're doing therapy. I think you need it right now. How did it go?”

“I… It's hard to tell, sometimes.”

He nods. “It's supposed to be a journey, right? A progression. I guess you don't always know how it'll turn out until you get to the other end.”

I nod my head. “Well, today… today, talking with her made me realize a few things. Important things.” I have to stop for a moment, to organize my thoughts. “I went to see my mother, and that was … intense. I felt so helpless, just as I did as a kid. Until I realized that I could get out of there. That I could really just walk away.”

“When was the last time you saw her?”

“Years … eight years ago. A long time.”

“Do you want to tell me what happened there?”

“Not much, really. She was the same, but older, everything more … exaggerated. So incredibly sad and bitter. I didn't stay long. I gave her some money. Nothing else happened, other than what happened in my head, which was … a bit of a surprise.”

“What do you mean?”

“I felt sorry for her. She's so pathetic, so completely broken down. I had this glimpse of what her life must have been like all these years. And I was able to feel sympathy for her. Maybe … maybe I don't have to be so angry anymore.”

“So, you feel better for having gone, seeing her?”

I have to pause, think about how to answer. “I feel differently about her than I did before. But I'm not sure yet how that translates into how I feel about myself.”

“You need some time to absorb it. Then you can tell me more, if you want to.”

I nod again. “I do want to tell you. But I'm not used to thinking things through like this. Not emotional issues.” I stop, push my hair away from my face. I feel tight all over, aching and dizzy. As though I've been out in the sun too long, or drank too much. “Joshua, I want to tell you something now. Something I've just figured out.”

“You can tell me anything.”

He takes my hand, and that makes it easier, somehow.

“The hard times for me were always when I wasn't working. I had this warped idea that I was at my healthiest when I was working, that there was this sense of personal power in it. I felt… liberated. But I see now that it was escapism for me, every bit as much as my mother's drinking is for her, as much as sleeping the day away like I did today. I've spent most of my adult life trying to escape, whether it was being paid for sex or sleeping too much. And it's like an addiction, and that addiction is not really about the sex at all, even if that's sort of what I told myself. It was about approval. Needing to find that sense of personal power from outside myself. That's what I became addicted to.”

He is simply listening to me, holding on to my hand.

“Today I saw a woman who lives in such an extreme state of escapism that she has excluded any sort of possibility of a life. I don't want to be that woman. I didn't even like who I was in her presence. I have to truly begin to take some responsibility for who I am.”

“Yes. But you also have to stop blaming yourself for it all. Because until you do, you can't guarantee that you're over the addiction. No, I don't mean that. Shit.” He pauses, runs a hand over the back of his neck. “I don't mean to sound like I know it all.”

“No. It's okay. It's true. But I swear to you, Joshua, I am over the part where I act on it. I am working through this stuff. That's what today was about.”

“I know. I'm sorry, baby.”

“I think … I can't think any more today. Can we just stop here and talk about it later? Please?” I get up, swing my legs over the side of the bed, taking a throw blanket from the end of the bed and wrapping it around me.

He is immediately contrite. “Of course. I don't mean to pound this stuff into you. I really don't. I know what you did today was hard.” He reaches out to me and I go to him. He wraps his arms around me, lays his head on my blanket-covered stomach. The heat of him envelops me, as strong as his arms, like a protective cloud. And I am so damn grateful that he's here with me.

“Joshua …” I drop the blanket, baring myself to him. “Fuck me, please.”

He doesn't say a word. But his clothes are coming off, falling into small piles at his feet. He pauses to grab something from the nightstand drawer, tosses the box of condoms and something else—I don't care what at this point—onto the floor and pushes me down, onto the thick carpet.

He spreads my thighs with his hands. No preamble; he is giving me exactly what I asked for, what I need. He leans in, sucking my clit into his mouth. A kind of desperate pleasure shoots through me immediately. Deeper still when he spreads my pussy lips with his thumbs, shoves them inside me.

“Ah, yes, Joshua … just like that.”

I am soaking, trembling already. And he is sucking, sucking, until my clitoris is sore and tender and I can hardly take any more.

He lifts his head. “Are you going to come, Valentine?”

“Yes. Yes …”

He turns me over suddenly, his hands rough on my body, and I love it, love being handled like this. I need it not to be romantic, not to be pretty, and he understands exactly.

Yes, he's fucking perfect, this man.

And he is about to fuck me.

He lifts my hips, positioning me on my knees. Spreading my ass cheeks, he presses his condom-sheathed cock at my opening. I surge back against him.

“Just do it, Joshua. I need you to. I need to … to lose myself. Please …”

“I know just how to do it, baby. I know what you need.” There is a darkness in his voice that's all about sex, about taking me over.

He slides the tip of his cock inside me, and my body clenches.

“Oh, yes …”

Then his hand comes down between us, his finger slipping between my cheeks and stroking that tightest of holes. His finger is slick with lube, I realize, before he presses it in.

A shock of pure lust goes through me; being filled this way, pussy and ass, makes each sensation more intense.

He pumps into me, his cock driving deep, and with his finger he presses harder into my ass, moves it in a circular, twisting motion that has me writhing and panting.

“Please, Joshua.”

“Please what, baby? What do you want? I'll give it to you, whatever it is. All I need to know is that you want it.”

“I need you to … I need you inside me everywhere.”

He pushes his finger in deeper, thrusts his cock inside me, and pleasure courses through me, hot and powerful. I am losing all sense of anything but his hands on me, his cock, his skin against mine, and the sharp scent of sex in the air.

“You want me to fuck you in the ass, is that it, Valentine? To really take over?”

“Yes. Please, Joshua.”

I am nearly sobbing with need now, squirming against his finger, his thick cock.

“Anything for you, baby.” Lust in his voice, adding an edge that reverberates through my body.

He pauses, and his finger slips out of me for a moment, comes back covered in lube. He pushes it into my ass, big gobs of it, and even that makes me shiver, makes my hard clit throb, pulse.

His finger slides out of me, then his cock, but in moments I can feel it at the entrance to my ass, his fingers stroking, teasing. His other hand slides around my body, finds my clitoris, and begins to massage it.

“Oh, God, Joshua! I'll come too fast. And I need to feel this.”

He slows down, his fingers still pressing onto my clit, but gently now. With his other hand he guides his cock into my ass, just the tip. There is that familiar burning sensation, but it is gone in moments as I breathe into it, let him past that ring of tight muscle. I am shaking all over. And I realize that despite how many times I've had anal sex before, this time it's as much about trust as anything else. I press back against him, taking him deeper.

“Ah, you do need it, don't you, Valentine? You need me to love you everywhere. I do, baby. I do.”

He presses deeper, an inch at a time. I breathe into it, relax my muscles, rocking a little with him. And with every inch the pleasure shafts deeper into my body: my sex, my belly.

When he shoves two fingers into my pussy I gasp, pleasure like a shock to my system. I am filled completely. Possessed. And it is flawless.

He thrusts his hips, not too hard, but enough that I really feel it. And when he moves his hand so that he can thumb my clit while his fingers move inside me, I gasp for air. Pleasure runs hot in my body, electric, exquisite. And as he whispers into the back of my neck, his breath warm and lovely against my skin, I come, my climax crashing down on me like the weight of the earth. I can hardly breathe as I cry out his name, over and over.

He is still pumping into me from every direction, milking my orgasm for all my body has. I am coming and coming, shivering, tears rolling down my cheeks.

When he tenses, a long shudder rippling through his body so that I can feel it inside my own, my sight dims, and I am momentarily blinded, breathless. Pure bliss, his climax and my own, and this moment of giving myself over to it all. To him.

He slips out of me, fingers and cock, rolls onto his side, pulls me up against him, my back to his chest. We are damp with sweat, panting. Beautiful.

The thought goes through my mind that this is all I'll ever need.

I know even now that's not true. But at this moment, it's enough. More than I ever dared to dream of.

TUESDAY MORNING AND JOSHUA decided to go into work late so he can take me to breakfast. We got up early and drove to Lily's, this funky place on Abbot Kinney in Venice Beach. It's packed, even at eight a.m. on a weekday. The usual eclectic mix of beach people: writers with their laptops, teenage kids with their skateboards, the local soccer moms in their jogging suits, babies in designer strollers.

The place is tiny, the tables almost on top of each other. But the coffee is superb and it smells like heaven: fresh pastries and bacon and a little patchouli from the bohemian crowd.

I've ordered French toast, a childhood favorite. The waitress brings it to the table and I smile at Joshua as I pour too much maple syrup on and dig in.

He fits right in here. His hair is a little mussed, spiky. It usually is, even when he's in a suit. But I like him even better like this, in his cargo pants and a T-shirt. Casual. Comfortable.

“You look happy this morning,” he says, forking a bite of eggs into his mouth.

“I am. Happier than I've been in a long time.”

He lowers his voice, leans forward, a glint in his hazel eyes. “I should fuck you in the ass more often.”

I laugh. “Maybe you should. But that's not it. Well, that's certainly part of it. God, I don't know. I just feel … different. In a good way. It's as though things are shifting around inside me, and it's an almost physical sensation.”

He nods his head. “I felt that way when I came back from Europe. Stronger. Even though what happened there, and before, was hard.”

“Yes, that's it exactly.” I take a bite of my French toast, savor the sugary syrup on my tongue. “I realized something when I woke up this morning.”

“What was that?”

“That there are three different sides to me.” I sip my coffee, enjoying the heat of it. “No, four. The old me, who I was growing up in that house, with my parents. I saw a glimpse of that yesterday, and I didn't like it. It was … frightening, to feel like that again, even that small hint of it. It was sad.”

“What about the other sides?”

“There's the working me I created when I left home. That person is someone I made, pulling bits and pieces out of thin air. A design I furthered by going to college, taking classes. A doppelgánger, almost. And I lived like that all these years, in ghost form. Does that make sense?”

He nods his head. “Sure it does. But it wasn't all bad. You speak how many languages?”

“No, it's not all bad. I managed to get an education of sorts, even if it wasn't very specific. And that's more than anyone from my background could have expected, I suppose.”

He nods, and I'm glad he's not arguing the point with me.

I go on. “There's the person I am when I'm in Lydia's office. And that person is so damn honest it scares the hell out of me sometimes. That person is angry and raw. But also thinking, exploring, trying to figure it all out. My life. But that me spends a little too much time intellectualizing everything. I know that. I'm sure Lydia knows it, too. And then there's who I am with you. And that me is also working, trying to figure everything out. Working really hard.” My throat is closing up, and I have to swallow a few breaths to make it open up again.

He reaches across the table, covers my hand in his. “I know that, baby. I can see it.”

I nod, continue. “That's when I'm the most vulnerable, when I'm with you. I don't always want to be, but it just happens. It's happening right now. But as wide open as I am with you, I still don't feel like that's my true self. Not yet. I haven't discovered yet exactly who that is.” I pause, wrap my hands around my coffee mug, sip the hot, sweet liquid.

He says, “Maybe you have to find a way to integrate all of those selves before you find out who you really are.”

“Yes, that's what I've been thinking. I wish I could just do it, that grasping the concept would make it happen.”

“It'll happen. I know you can do it, Valentine.”

“I hope so.”

He picks up my hand, brushes a kiss across the knuckles.

I have never wanted anything more in my life than I want him. And not just sexually, although that's there, too, a sharp current always running beneath the surface. I want him.

What I want is a real life. And I'm so afraid I'm going to blow it.

“Baby, you need to stop worrying so much.”

“I don't understand how you can be so calm.”

He's quiet, watching me, his golden-green gaze on mine. Shadows pass across his eyes as he's thinking. “I'm not always calm about it. You know I'm not. But I understand that if I dwell on the obstacles, I'll miss all the good stuff that's happening every day with you. I wish you could see it that way, too. I think it's a lot harder for you. I wish it wasn't so hard, baby. I wish I could make it easier for you.”

His gaze is warm on mine. He squeezes my hand hard.

“I love you, Joshua.”

He is still looking at me. His eyes are so beautiful, his long lashes lit by the easy morning sun.

“I love you, too. If you can't believe in anything else yet, believe in that.”

I nod, smile. Deliriously happy and so damn scared all at the same time. Have I ever really believed in anything? I don't think I've had the chance to.

I think I'm afraid to. And I'm afraid that fear is what's going to blow this, to blow everything apart.

Don't fuck this up, Valentine. Do not fuck it up.

Please.